'High-Touch' Goes Into High Gear
“High-touch interaction” is cyberspace’s newest buzzword. It refers to the activities between online retailers and their customers. The term particularly pertains to the quality of follow- up on inquiries, refunds, returns, coupon redemptions, delivery fulfillments and other customer support requests.
For the e-tailer, January through early February is the prime time—even more so than December—for cultivating business. This is the time to build Web site brand loyalty that will really pay off next Holiday season—and indeed, throughout the year.
It’s no surprise that right after the holidays, high-touch performance gets studied and developed with an eye toward retaining the loyalty of repeat customers and establishing the faithfulness of newly acquired customers, according to research by Redwood City, Calif.–based BroadVision, a Web application provider.
According to the study, the wise e-tailer is already braced for intensified communication with its recently acquired Holiday audience. “This Christmas season in particular has been an interesting season because the whole promise of next-generation e-commerce is here to stay,” said Alex Kormushoff, BroadVision’s executive vice president of worldwide operations.
Success requires that the e-tailer clearly understand its customers’ points of view, which can lead to upselling, crossselling and many other opportunities.
Web sites that carefully implement customer self-service features already hold a key to maintaining and growing an e-tail customer community. But many e-tailers were overwhelmed this Holiday season. The online purchasing audience grew by 26 percent to $23.2 billion, with apparel serving as the leading online Holiday category, totaling $3.8 billion, or 16 percent of the pie, according to a recent study by Milpitas, Calif.–based Nielsen/Net Ratings. Mountain View, Calif.–based VeriSign Payment Systems also revealed that there are now more female buyers than male buyers online. Women purchase more in the apparel, home, and beauty and health categories.
E-Tailer Conference
Set for Feb. 14–17 in Palm Desert, Calif., the eTail 2005conference will include presentations and roundtable think-tank sessions featuring leading apparel professionals.
Among the apparel-specific presentations planned for the event are:
bull; “Re-engineering Your Enterprise: Building the Brand, the Message, the Systems and the Team Concurrently,” presented by Bill Bass, vice president and general manager of Sears Customer Direct and senior vice president of e-commerce for Lands’ End.
bull; “Engaging in E-Mail Communications That Build Relationships and Maximize ROI,” featuring Danielle Savin, vice president of Direct Frederick’s of Hollywood
bull; “Understanding the Dynamic Nature of Your Specialty Apparel ECommerce Business,” a panel discussion with Brendan Hoffman, president and chief executive officer of Neiman Marcus Direct; Savin of Direct Frederick’s of Hollywood; Jose Munoz, director of catalog and Internet for Kenneth Cole; Eric Faintreny, chief executive officer of Red Cats; and Dave Towers, vice president of e-commerce for Liz Claiborne.
For the full agenda, visit www.etail2005.com.
Site Review: Fashionlines.com
Fashionlines.com is the best pure online fashion magazine we have come across so far in 2005. Cool, visually rich graphics take you on a trip through an expanded vision of the fashion world, where apparel plays amid many other aspects of contemporary life, including art and design, beauty and health, and celebrities.
Based in New York, editor Christine Suppes started the project in the summer of 1999. Since then, her staff has grown to include reporters and editors on the West Coast; in Satilde;o Paulo, Brazil; Paris and other locales. Fashionlines also has “at large” staff members who contribute to creating an excellent Web site experience rich in content. Trend reporting and predicting are what they do best.
This month’s editor’s note addresses “California Detective Chic” with a heartfelt essay on the fashionable influence of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. What more reason do you need to check it out?
